Cutting tools comprising cemented carbide bodies have been used in both coated and uncoated conditions for a variety of applications including earth boring and mining operations as well as machining various metals and alloys. Increasing cutting tool resistance to wear and failure modes, including fracture and chipping, remains an intense area of research and development. To that end, significant resources have been assigned to the development of wear resistant refractory coatings for cutting tools. TiC, TiCN, TiOCN, TiN and Al2O3, for example, have been applied to cemented carbides by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) as well as physical vapor deposition (PVD).
Moreover, properties of the underlying sintered cemented carbide substrate have been investigated. Cutting tool manufacturers have examined compositional changes to cemented carbide bodies and the resulting effects on cemented carbide properties including, but not limited to, hardness, wear resistance, fracture toughness, density and various magnetic properties. Enhancement of one cemented carbide property, however, often results in the concomitant deterioration of another cemented carbide property. For example, increasing wear resistance of a cemented carbide body can result in decreased fracture toughness of the body. Nevertheless, improvements to cemented carbide substrates are necessary to meet the evolving demands of earth boring and metal working applications, and a careful balance between competing properties is required when making compositional changes to cemented carbide bodies in efforts to provide cutting tools with improved performance.